The Boston Red Sox said it had apologized to former Minnesota Twins outfielder Torii Hunter, who said he was subjected to racial harassment while in Boston or playing at the city’s famous Fenway Park.
Hunter, winner of the All Star five times and Golden Glove nine times, told ESPN last week that “it has been called N-word in Boston 100 times. … Of the small children, and the adults next to them did not say anything . “
Hunter said he did not negotiate trade clauses in his contract when playing professional baseball so he did not have to go to Boston.
“Torii Hunter’s experience is real,” the Red Sox statement said. “If you doubt it because you haven’t heard it yourself, take it from us, it happened. Last year there were 7 incidents reported in Fenway Park where fans used racial slurs. That’s all we know.
Hunter is not the first professional athlete to complain about racial harassment in Boston. Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones told me USA Today in 2017 he was racially harassed and nuts were thrown at him while playing in Boston. Celtics guard Marcus Smart told ESPN The Undefaten, a network platform that includes the intersection of race, sports, and culture, it is called the word-n in the city.
Red Sox has a troubled past when it comes to racing. They became the last integrated Major League Baseball team in 1959, 12 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
However, the team has tried to combat the narrative in the past few years. Yawkey Way, an iconic road taken from the name of the owner of the Red Sox who refused integration, was renamed in 2017 because of Yawkey’s racist heritage.
Both Hunter and Jones posted on Twitter to support the Red Sox statement published Wednesday.
